Here it is a major holiday, and I am so tired.  Depression has been under control for many years, but I feel like I'm starting to spiral downward since about a month ago. I feel like withdrawing more and more. I don't know what's gotten into me.

I think having medical issues has put a strain on me. I had a fairly serious illness and needed surgery for it late last year, and for some reason being in the operating room takes it out of me. The health problem that I had was causing severe bone pain among other things that I won't go into here, but if I didn't have the operation, the illness could eventually have killed me. Thankfully, I didn't have cancer, however.

The operation was successful but there were complications. They operated on my thyroid, and my vocal cord was paralyzed in the process. It's been about six months now and no signs of vocal cord recovery. It's looking more and more like it's permanent.  For three months I couldn't utter anything more than a whisper. It was starting to become traumatic for me.  Also, a month out of the surgery, I got up from bed one day and simply hit the floor. This was new to me too, so the emergency room referred me to cardiology. Thankfully the pass-out was not cardiac related and my heart is OK. Very relieved. But, the cardiologist seems to think that it is the seroquel. He could be right. The med works well for me and serves as a sleep aid and antidepressant, but yes it is very heavy and does have side effects. I've been taking it for about ten years. I prefer it to antidepressants because antidepressants have other side effects that I actually hate worse.

I don't know if there is anything new or better out there-there is a new treatment called TMS, which I may check out. I also practice meditation and do Somatic Therapy. These are all pretty effective. But, yes, seroquel is a pretty heavy drug with a high side effect profile. I would like to check into some other things. 

I've been feeling just gradually more depressed since mid-March. I had to have a second operation the first week of March to help my vocal cord-they injected a gel into it to get it to enlarge and vibrate against the other one, so I have a voice for now. But, when the gel dissolves, my voice will go away again. I'm a teacher for a living, so this is a very serious problem.

To make matters worse, my career counselor wrote me off when I said I had to have another operation and I needed to take a couple of weeks off. He said, "I'll put you on my do not call list and you can get back to me." I felt very dismissed. I've recovered and he won't answer my emails. I feel like, in part, I am missing personal and professional opportunities because I literally could not talk.

When I had the appointment to check my vocal cord function, the specialist said that the injection is helping my voice volume, but that upon testing, there is little to no actual movement in the vocal cord itself-it's still paralyzed. If it doesn't recover, this may mean another injection (more time in the operating room again)  And if after about 9-12 months my voice simply just doesn't come back, I will have to have another surgery to put in a permanent implant. There is also a more complex operation where a nerve is resectioned to the vocal cord. I might have to fly somewhere to do this.

I told the endocrine surgeon that aside from this, I am alright. The serious health crisis is passed, the severe bone pain is gone.  He said, "this will be one of the easiest surgeries you ever have." Well, that has not turned out to be the case. I now have this collateral problem which might result in a few more operations!

In the meanwhile, I find myself very exhausted. I don't seem to have the level of stamina that I am used to. I told the endocrine surgeon this, but he sort of smirks it off and said, "it's just you, you're an outlier."  I felt a little blamed.  After all, I'm the one who can't talk properly.

In the meantime, I am skipping out on all kinds of things and sleeping in on weekends. I had an event I was really looking forward to yesterday morning, to play frisbee at the park with a meetup I like. I slept a full night, and still was so exhausted when I woke up that I didn't go to the event.

Today, I was supposed to go to an Easter service at 6:00 AM, the sunrise service. I told my friend it was tentative because I truly am not an early morning person. I set the alarm for five, got up and looked at the dark sky, texted her I was sorry, but would see her another time. I am supposed to go to dinner later this afternoon and didnt' want to be asleep through that, so I just slept in. I was just so beat. 7:30 AM. would have been alright, but I was really out of it. 

There was a 7:30 AM, 9:00 and 11:00.  I finally woke up and could have gone to the 11:00 service, was showered and ready, and just felt this really overwhelming blah, tired feeling and didn't go. And it's Easter. I've been doing that more and more with events lately to stay home, kick back, take a nap or just watch TV. I usually am on the move, so I don't know what's wrong with me. The bathroom needs to be cleaned and I'm staring at it.

I'm upset that I haven't talked to my family back East for two years-that since the pandemic they refused to pick up the phone. It's been two years this Easter since we have spoken, and I feel like they have ghosted both me and my mother, and I'm sensitive to this ghosting now. It's been two years since my boyfriend and I broke up, and two years since this pandemic began and is *seemingly* ended. It seems to be ending with a "whisper rather than a bang," which is perfectly alright-no pandemic is better than a pandemic!  But, this dying out and attrition of everything else-health, relationships, opportunites, is dismal. To me the rising costs are dismal. I make OK money and literally every cent goes to food, bills, these medical costs. Having surgery is not cheap!!  I am so cleaned out I can't believe it. I just can't keep up financially!! I put half a tank of gas in the car yesterday and it was the same price of a full tank just a few months ago! I was blown away yesterday!  My account is constantly overdrawing and I can't keep up! And-I rent a room from my family and buy my clothes at Goodwill to get by. I'm STILL broke and seem homeless people on all sides everywhere when I am driving. What is happening?!

I feel let down, it feels very anti-climatic. The relationship that never happened (it did but failed). The famliy that never answered. And now I feel like some of my friends are getting weird. I could have gone to a later service, but I just didn't have the physical energy to get up in the dark and drag myself over there. I think I would have been too tired to get anything out of it. And yet, I didn't go at 11 AM. I feel very apathetic and cynical.